


I will do you gentleness

by ForsythiaRising



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: A little bit of violence, Alternate Universe - Medieval, And a very happy ending, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, and gets to keep the cat, in that order, in which Adora saves the cat, is it really catradora if they don’t try to stab each other at least once, more specifically arthurian, swordfights the cat, they’re dirty and tired and armed (and in love)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForsythiaRising/pseuds/ForsythiaRising
Summary: Catra must decide something, though, because she dismounts, secures Melog loosely to a tree while Adora’s heart leaps.And then, Catra draws her sword.“Catra—” Adora starts.“Arm yourself, Sir Adora,” Catra says, and the leap becomes a fall.—How Sir Adora of Bright Moon fought with Horde Prime the Tyrant, and how her battles with Sir Catra were finished.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 60
Kudos: 332





	I will do you gentleness

**Author's Note:**

> This just kind of happened. Some notes: 
> 
> -You absolutely do not need to know Arthurian myth or Le Morte for this, and goodness knows I don’t expect anyone to. However, for the sake of sourcing and curiosity: this tracks closely to Book VIII chapter XXXIX and Book IX chapter XI of _Le Morte d’Arthur_ by Sir Thomas Malory, with Adora as Tristram and Catra as Lamorak. Changes are made only in service of character (bc they are still very much their spop selves), drama (bc it’s important), and narrative (e.g. mashing it together in one episode, rather than chucking a whole story about an unrelated dude in a crappy coat in the middle). I like to think Tom Malory would approve of the drama, even though he wouldn’t know pacing if it bit him on the ass. He probably wouldn’t like this anyway; too many women. With _names_. 
> 
> -If anything in here feels incredibly and hilariously specific or bizarre and is not from She-Ra, there’s a 95% chance it’s from Malory. No really, Le Morte is wild.
> 
> -a deeply emphatic THANK YOU (so, so much) to the whole crowd of folks who beta’d this AND put up with my lengthy, lengthy rambles about Le Morte. _Lengthy,_ I say.

* * *

Adora is out of her seat before Sir Catra even goes down. 

She sees the move coming - treacherous, unsportsmanlike, and so grossly underhanded that Adora finds herself shouting, even though she knows from experience that Catra can’t hear her over the cacophony of spectators and the arena-specific rush of battle. It’s Catra’s skilled horsemanship alone that keeps Horde Prime’s blow, aimed not for the knight but between her mount’s eyes, from hitting its mark.

And yet, there’s damage, as their dance out of the way sacrifices the painstaking balance that keeps knight-and-horse-and-lance in concert. All Adora can do is stand and watch (heart in her throat, fist clenched tight on Glimmer’s shoulder) as Catra goes down hard.

Adora spares a glance to confirm that the nervously whinnying Melog is unscathed, but it’s only a split second before her attention is back to the rider. Adora’s seen Catra unhorsed many times - been the cause of it, most of them - but she’s never seen the descent this messy, without finesse or the elegant, semi-chaotic agility she’s come to know as Catra’s technique. This fall is awkward, a clattering, ragdoll tumble that doesn’t cease until she comes to a rough, clanging stop. 

Adora doesn’t even notice herself stepping forward until she feels Glimmer’s hand on her wrist. It reminds her that she shouldn’t care, at least not this much. It reminds her that Catra’s her enemy, her self-designated nemesis, and that their brief truce as allies against the tyranny of this Horde Prime is just that - brief. It reminds her that despite the years of grudgingly shared travel and campfires, their many ferocious, unresolved duels have made Catra’s current state Adora’s goal more than once, and Catra’s for her more often than that. 

So she lets Glimmer stop her - what was she going to _do_ , anyway? - but she doesn’t sit down, and she doesn’t look at Glimmer or at Bow or even Sir Scorpia, who she knows to be both a denizen of the Horde and Catra’s traveling companion. She remains transfixed on Catra’s haphazard, motionless sprawl, buzzing with the edge of panic.

In the long, harrowing silence that follows, Adora replays every time she’s crossed swords with this woman, every interruption or caution or noble impulse that has stopped them from playing those battles out to their conclusions. They’ve never finished a fight, and it’s never bothered Adora until now, faced with the gut-wrenching reality that maybe they never will. “Get up,” she finds herself hissing, even though she knows it won’t do any good, “Get up, get up, get up _get up get—”_

Catra stirs, and Adora feels the breath whoosh out of her in a rush, lightheadedness following quick on its heels. She winces sympathetically as Catra sits with painstaking care, cringes as she notices the dent in Catra’s helm. Catra notices it too, clearly, and when she takes it off Adora is equal parts relieved to see her face - unnaturally pallid and sweat-slicked, but alive and gasping and sharp, newly shorn hair sticking at odd angles around the pinned-back triangles of her ears - and concerned that she’s down armored facial coverage.

Not that that stops Catra. Not that much ever does. 

Adora watches Catra lever herself to standing, watches her reach up in what Adora knows is a nervous impulse to push her hair back, watches her be thwarted by the bulk of her gauntlet. Adora thinks of the frustrated growl Catra must be letting out now, flicking the offending hair back with a head-toss instead, and allows herself a small smile at its imagined echo in her ears. 

The smile falls, though, as Horde Prime finally trots his horse before his opponent. His own helm is under his arm and his motions are lazy, his refusal to meet Catra on the ground where she’s fallen outright rude. Adora can only barely make out the details of their faces, but she knows how Catra looks when viewed from horseback, knows how Catra looks on foot, battle-splattered and glaring upwards, vivid with anger and exhaustion.

Horde Prime doesn’t deserve the view. 

“How very impressive.” Prime says with condescending sarcasm, voice pitched so the acoustics of the arena will carry it into the stands, “Are you quite sure you’re prepared to continue? You seem... _tired_.” 

The words are vicious in their mildness, and the stricken expression that flashes across Catra’s face makes Adora clench her fists all over again. In part because of the audacity of the taunt, the bare fact being Catra had faced far too many opponents before Horde Prime had even touched the field, but mostly because the words are familiar. Because, _‘You’re tired, Sir Catra,'_ is what Adora had said all those years before, on the day they met, when it was her on horseback looking down at a bedraggled Catra. _It would be unfair to fight you like this.’_

She hadn’t wanted to joust Catra in the first place, but she’d done it on Light Hope’s order because - because her mentor wasn’t the sort of woman Adora knew how to refuse, not then. Catra had defeated thirty knights that day, and Adora, well-rested - as fresh as Horde Prime is now - had refused her a thirty-first battle, not when the other woman had so thoroughly earned her fatigue. Catra wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Catra had never forgiven her. 

She sees that Catra layered over this one - hair shorter now, the lines of her body more known than new, but still with all those same sharp edges and flaring temper and fierce indignation. She’s still magnificent. 

“Tired my ass,” Catra snarls, playing confidence to the crowd. Her sword flashes as she pulls it forth. “Now get off your fucking horse and _fight me_.”

She’d said that too, to Adora, all those years ago.

The echo of their first not-a-fight chafes, even moreso as Horde Prime passes his helm off to one of his many sons, alights from his horse and, with downright nasty superciliousness in his every motion, draws his blade. 

It’s awful to watch. 

Catra’s typical canny incisiveness is dulled by exhaustion; Prime is rested and alert and so clearly toying with her that Adora wants to scream. It’s painful to watch, and worse still is the helplessness that comes of seeing Catra’s bravado slip into desperation as she’s beaten back and back and back, and Adora can’t _do_ anything, and here Adora abandons any fiction that she doesn’t care because she cares, of course she cares, she cares _so much_ , because if Catra, if Catra doesn’t—

A low, unpleasant laugh fills the stadium, freezing Adora’s thoughts and boiling her blood. Prime has stopped, sword held casually over his shoulder while Catra gasps, barely upright against the arena’s fence, one hand pressed to her side and too much blood splattered at her hairline and mouth and armor. 

The laugh continues for far too long, and Adora’s clenched fists tighten that much more. She realizes with hot, hard certainty that she has never felt hatred until right now. 

Once Prime’s decided he’s done laughing - she hates him, she hates him, she _hates_ him - he smiles, and Adora hates him even more. And then he says, smooth and horrible, “Really, _Sir Catra_ , I thought you said we were going to _fight_. And yet,” he clicks his tongue, and even the click manages somehow to carry. 

It’s a sign of her state that all Catra can do in response is snarl, wordless and gasping, but she does it well. Adora feels a pang of affection made painfully sharp by the circumstances. 

“You’re so...pathetic. It’s tedious, frankly. But I consider myself benevolent, and you have indeed...tried. And so, for all your _hard work_ , I’ll do you one last courtesy,” Horde Prime’s voice drips with insincerity. Then, in a move as theatrical as it is cruel, he turns to the crowd, calls out, “ _Sir Catra_ insisted on a fight, but is having a bit of trouble honoring her commitments. If any knight here would take up on her behalf, I’m sure she’d be _much_ obliged.”

It’s an offer meant to humiliate, but that doesn’t matter, nor does Glimmer’s hand reaching for her wrist or Scorpia’s movement forward or whatever Bow is saying. Nothing matters except the flicker of defeat in Catra’s slump, where it never, _never_ belongs. Adora is down through the stands and vaulting the railing almost before Prime has finished his speech. 

She steps into the arena resolutely, eyes locked on Horde Prime. But he’s not the one who greets her - it’s Catra, with a gasping sort of hysterical laugh and weak hiss of, “Oh _fuck_ no, what the _fuck. Adora_.” 

Adora flashes her a grin, the sensation of finally getting to _do something_ searing through her like lightning, like fire, like something too bright-gold-glowing to name. “Hey, Catra,” she says, and then louder, much less pleasant, to Prime, “Get me a sword.” 

“I’d think we should start with a joust, Sir…?”

Adora ignores the question, rolls her eyes. “And let you pull that same trick you did with Catra?” Adora snorts, “Not a chance. Sword. Now.” 

Horde Prime gives her an appraising look; she returns it with a steady glare. Finally, he says to one of his many eerily similar-looking sons, “Well? Get the woman a sword.” 

While she waits, she wants nothing more than to drink Catra in, to watch her breaths come one after the other and track the motion of her trembling hands, to ask if she’s okay and hear the sound of her voice on whatever invective she chooses to respond with. Adora aches to touch her, feel her real and solid and squirming, probably, when Adora ghosts fingers over fresh bruises to see how deep they go. But Adora knows that kind of tenderness would be unwelcome, at any point probably but especially now, here with Horde Prime and all his subjects watching in this theater of violence where Catra’s already been humiliated enough. And so Adora keeps her gaze firm on Prime and does not give in to the temptation to look away. She wonders, but does not check, if Catra’s looking at _her_ , and if the look is resentful, or angry, or mortified, or maybe, just maybe— 

And then, she has a sword. And then, Adora fights. 

And Adora - Adora’s not fresh today, not by a long shot. She’d slept poorly last night, an uncomfortable guest in this hostile castle, and she’s seen her share of combat during the tournament, though she’d taken to the stands to watch this final bout. She’s down to just chainmail and the sword she holds is unfamiliar, making her wish she hadn’t stowed the majority of her gear away after what was to be her final match, hadn’t decided to be _polite._ Because nothing about Horde Prime is polite, not his alert sharpness - a product of his refusal to take the field until now - nor his targeted, urbane barbs. Not the crap quality sword he’s lent her - really, she can feel it, not sabotage exactly but...low quality, certainly. Not the way he sneers at her, not the way he’d sneered at Catra, the way he’d looked down at her like she didn’t _matter,_ like it hadn’t been his treachery that put her there. 

Adora is tired and Adora is spent, armed with a shit sword and little else against a fully-rested opponent on his home ground. 

This would be a problem, except: Adora is not just a good fighter. Adora is _the_ _best._

And she’s also pissed. 

Horde Prime tries to turn this into a show, too, tries to present himself as patient and aloof while he baits her, but it’s a performance Adora has no time for today. She quickly shifts his spectacle into something more brutal, one step off from an outright brawl, though even then the fight is arduously long. Horde Prime may be a rude, overdramatic tyrant, but he’s also _good_ \- Adora is pushed to her limit, to the point where she thinks her arm might fall off or maybe she’ll just fall over entirely. At one point Prime gets a good slash at her leg, and she knows the bloody streak it leaves is going to be a problem, eventually. But it never once occurs to her that she’s going to do anything but win, first.

She sees the exact moment when Horde Prime realizes it, too. 

He’s disheveled, finally, the first time she’s seen him anything less than poised. His slicked back hair falls in front of his face, his previously pristine white-and-green armor a dusty mess as he gasps for breaths, his unhelmed face sour with a green tint of nausea as he recognizes, even if he refuses to accept, how this is going to go. Adora grins, and he bites out, “Who _are_ you?”

Adora bares her teeth. “My name,” she grunts, shoving him with the full force of her shoulder and sword, “is Sir Adora,” she presses forward, all offense, “a knight of Bright Moon.” Horde Prime falls back, stumbling against the onslaught of her blade and of her words. “Known also as She-Ra,” she adds, as a sharp streak of silver disarms him and his own sword clatters to the side.

Horde Prime laughs hollowly, tries to recapture his previous serenity but only manages to sound bitter when he says, “Ah. She-Ra. I’ve heard of you.” 

She holds the tip of her sword to his chest, its point right against the place where he presumably keeps a heart. And she adds, with fierce, exhausted satisfaction, “Now yield.” 

Horde Prime does not yield. Horde Prime does not yield and does not yield again, spitting and violent and mad, and when he finally tries to launch himself at her as though her sword doesn’t even exist she feels very little remorse over running him through. 

He falls in a heap at her feet, blood pooling around the blade that she doesn’t bother to retrieve. Only then does Adora allow herself to notice the arena’s crowd, silent in fear or horror or sheer intimidation, she does not know. She’s used to all three. 

But then, the crowd begins to roar. 

“Guess he wasn’t popular,” comes a voice from beside her, raised to carry over the cheers, and she turns to see Glimmer smiling, Bow at her side. 

Sir Scorpia’s there, too, and she’s the one who answers, “Oh, no, not at all. He was not a very nice man.” 

Adora’s about to reply when she catches sight of one of Horde Prime’s sons coming towards her, a dark red cape fluttering behind him. Adora tenses, aware that she’s left herself unarmed, but the man simply kneels beside his father and fusses with the dead man’s hand, then stands and offers Adora a ring.

“What’s this?” She asks, willing to blame her brusqueness on fatigue. And on distraction, because quite suddenly she’s aware of the weight of another pair of eyes, mismatched and familiar, at her back. 

“It is our custom,” the man intones, the words respectful despite a disgusted curl to his lip, “that any one who defeats our leader in armed combat holds the Horde.” 

Adora blinks. Examines his face. He looks serious. 

“ _What?”_

The man’s eyes narrow, clearly annoyed, and he begins through gritted teeth, “It is our custom—”

“Okay, yes, I heard you,” Adora laughs, incredulous, “Oh - no, no. Ha! Oh, no way.” 

“Am I to understand—”

“Oh no, thanks, no really, thank you. I’m flattered. But uh, no, no I would...not be great. At leading the Horde.” She thinks for a moment, and then smiles, “Sir Catra would, though.”

“ _What?”_

The voice comes from behind her, exactly where Adora’d known she’d be - somehow, through that peculiar, electric sense that only seems to come alive when Catra is close by. Adora can’t stop her smile from spreading into a full-fledged grin, can barely contain herself when she turns to see Catra, up close and breathing and messy with blood and dirt, glaring at her with annoyance and surprise and something else Adora can’t name, and once again Adora can’t look away. She’s suddenly very aware of her own post-battle dishevelment, and she locks her hands behind her back to resist the urge to fix her half-escaped ponytail or rub at her grime-covered cheeks.

Instead, she replies, “Come on, you’d be good at it. And you know how the Horde works, how to make it better.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to _run_ it,” Catra splutters. “Anyway, _you’re_ the one who won!”

“Yes, I won! Which means I get to pick the new leader! Right?” Adora turns to Horde Prime’s son and asks, a bit more uncertainly, “Right?” 

His disdain is obvious when he says, “Right.” 

“See!” Adora turns back to Catra, hands moving to her hips.

Catra, in turn, crosses her arms, “Well, I don’t want it.” And then, “Give it to Scorpia.” 

Sir Scorpia gives a little “oh!” of surprise. Everyone turns to look at her. 

Catra continues, almost grudgingly, “I mean, she _lives_ here, and she’s good at all the...people...stuff, and she’s like. Invested. And stuff.” Catra glares at the ground like she’s being challenged, though no one has disputed her. “Everyone knows her, anyway. And she’s...kind. The Horde could use. Some kindness.”

Adora cocks her head to the side, watching first Catra and then, after a moment, Scorpia. The white-haired knight has both her claws held to her mouth, eyes round with amazement and spiked armor dusty from her own tournament winnings. 

“Well,” Adora says to Scorpia, taking the signet ring from Horde Prime’s son and holding it out in offer, “what do you think?” 

Scorpia smiles, and then she starts to cry, and then she pulls Adora into a hug. Adora laughs, and then Scorpia laughs, and then they’re all laughing and hugging and it’s good, things are _good_ , except—

—except, when Adora finally extricates herself enough to look around, Catra’s gone. 

—

It’s over, and it isn’t. 

Oh, Horde Prime is quite thoroughly dead, and it’s a testament either to his tyranny or to Scorpia’s affable magnetism that nobody seems even a little bothered by the change in leadership, not even - maybe especially not - Prime’s ridiculously large contingent of sons. And Adora has never gotten used to killing, has never reached the point where death at the end of her blade sits well with her, but this one doesn’t sit as poorly as usual. She thinks that maybe has something to do with the memory of Prime’s cruel smile, his methodical ruthlessness as he had forced Catra to falter. 

And there, once again, is the actual reason it isn’t over, not today, not for Adora. Catra. 

She hadn’t been in the tournament’s medical tent, or in the feasting hall, or in the guest wing. When Adora had gone to the stables - to check on Swift Wind, of course, no other reason - she found that Melog had been tended to and left alone, nickering happily when Adora patted their nose. 

Not that Adora was looking for Catra, because she wasn’t. She just…thought that Catra might…want to see her, maybe. After all of it. 

She sighs, tilting her head back and feeling her loose hair catch against the rough tree bark; her fingers pick idly at the mush of dirt and leaves under her. She hadn’t cleaned up, not really, too eager to saddle Swift Wind and get away from the crowded halls of so many people, none of whom were the one she wanted to see. It’s easy, now, to give herself permission to dirty her tunic and soft pants with the damp forest floor when it’s only more dirt on dust on dried patches of flaky blood. 

She’s at - not peace, exactly, but something adjacent - when the sound of an approaching rider startles her. She scrambles to her feet, glad she’d left her sword belt on, and her hand is on its hilt when she recognizes Melog’s chestnut-red coat. She drops her hand, though her nerves fail spectacularly to abate. 

Catra rides to the other edge of the small clearing and wheels Melog around. There’s a moment, then: Catra on horseback and Adora on foot, and Adora notices that Catra is also still wearing the day’s grime. There’s silence between them, just the rustling of forest leaves and Melog’s soft shifting, and in it Adora tracks the messiness of Catra’s hair and a cut at her lip, the stripe of dried blood at her hairline and a darkened bruise at her collar. Adora’s mouth works, looking for something to say, but Catra’s face is impassive. 

Catra must decide something, though, because she dismounts, secures Melog loosely to a tree while Adora’s heart leaps. 

And then, Catra draws her sword. 

“Catra—” Adora starts.

“Arm yourself, Sir Adora,” Catra says, and the leap becomes a fall.

She isn’t like Catra, she knows; she doesn’t hide. She wonders what the other woman sees on her face. But Catra’s giving no hints, and so Adora steels herself to say, firm, “No.”

Catra rolls her eyes, “Oh, come off it,” she hisses, “you know you wanna. Draw that big ol’ sword of yours and _fight me_ , will you?”

Adora huffs, annoyed, “Seriously, Catra? I just saved your _life_.”

“Yup. Thanks for that, much appreciated, very good. Now come _on._ ” She stalks forward, and Adora is captivated by the fluid movement of her, but even moreso by the realization that she’d been wrong - Catra isn’t impassive at all. There’s a strange, wild fervor in her eyes, almost unhinged, and sends twin thrills of concern and fascination shooting down Adora’s spine. 

“Catra, Catra, can’t we just—” Adora cuts off, losing the thread in her distraction as Catra moves into her space and even closer still, a hair’s breadth from her, radiating heat and smelling like sweat and the woods and so close, finally, that Adora can feel her every breath.

“Just what?” Catra murmurs, and the words ghost over Adora’s face, “Rest? Ignore it, _again_? Have a nice few days without _fucking finishing this_ ,” on the last word, Catra yanks the sword from Adora’s scabbard, pulling back as Adora yelps with surprise. 

“What the _fuck_ , Catra!?” She shouts, glares.

Catra twirls Adora’s sword, holding the hilt out to her. “I poisoned Bright Moon,” she says, belligerent and intentionally jarring. 

“Food poisoning,” Adora rallies and replies, terse, and now it's her turn to roll her eyes. She refuses to acknowledge the blade in Catra’s hand. 

Catra pushes on, insistent. “I kidnapped your stupid friends, remember that?” she adds. “Oh, and all those nasty rumors about you - I started them.” 

Adora knows she’s being baited. She also knows it’s working, because yeah, she _was_ mad - about each one of these, even once she’d handled them. They build up, the little things Catra pulls, frustration after frustration after frustration, and she’s fought over them before - she’s _started_ fights over them before. She murmurs, “You _did_ send that stupid Horn of Truth to Glimmer’s mom.”

Catra snickers, “Yeah, how’d that go? Your little friend get caught in a lie or twelve?”

“She did,” Adora accedes, “along with almost everyone at court.”

“Ha!” Catra exclaims, followed by a squeaking, loud laugh, a little nasty and a lot amused, and Adora’s caught between being captivated by it and that ghost of old anger Catra’s words are waking up. 

“We already fought about that, though,” Adora says, more calmly than she feels. She’d thought she had nothing left to give, today, and yet Catra always proves her wrong, doesn’t she? Because here it is, the adrenaline in her gut and restlessness in her limbs that always come with _Catra_.

That always come before a fight. 

“Yeah, we did, and we didn’t finish it. We _never_ finish it, Adora.” She shakes Adora’s sword meaningfully, words almost pleading.

She’s right, of course.

Adora examines Catra now, the challenge of the words and Catra’s own sword, held tense at her side. But then there’s also the sharp desperation in her eyes and the exhaustion in her over-rigid bearing, the way she leans a little away from the wound in her right side. “You’re hurt,” Adora says. 

Catra growls, throws Adora’s sword down at her feet. “Not that bad,” she says, spinning away in frustration, then turning back to hiss, “Now, _fight.”_

“Catra, you’re tired.”

“People keep saying that,” Catra says, pointed. 

Adora groans, picking up her sword, “You need to get _over it,_ Catra,” she says, serious. “You know I was under orders.” 

Catra snorts, “I was never mad you knocked me off my goddamn horse, Adora! I was mad you wouldn’t get down off _yours_ and fucking _fight me_.”

“Catra—”

“Well, now you’re on my level, aren’t you? I’m tired, you’re tired. I’m wounded, you’re wounded. We both fought the same evil fucking warlord. Now finally, finally, will you _finish a fight_ with _me,”_ she snarls.

Adora looks at her sword. 

Catra gets under her skin, yes, always, but it would be easy enough to slide the blade back into its sheath. 

She knows what will happen, if she does. It’s a familiar process, almost comforting: Catra will rage at her, all whirlwind invectives, until the exhaustion catches up with them both. They’ll spend the evening at dinner anyway, a half-sulking, gruff companionship, and maybe they’ll even travel together a bit when they leave the Horde. Ultimately, though, they’ll part ways. Catra will pull some ridiculous stunt in the name of revenge against Adora’s slights, and the next time they meet they’ll fight again, and again, and again, in the name of anger or obligation or flirtation or simply unfinished business, and they won’t finish those fights either, because they never do. 

_And what_ , an insidious little voice says in Adora’s gut, _do you think will be different if you fight her now_?

Adora doesn’t know.

And suddenly, she wants to. 

But what does it, finally, is Catra. Sword at the ready, agitated, her voice nearly panicked when she says, “Adora, _please—_ “

Adora charges.

It’s a mess of a fight, uncoordinated and staggering, both of them tired and, Adora knows, it shows. Catra’s agile dodges falter a little, Adora’s blows lack some of their usual vigor, and they both leave and fail to take opening after opening, limbs heavy and minds fuzzy with fatigue. Adora notices the lag, and she knows Catra - fierce, beautiful Catra, giving her all even when her all is just the dregs of a long, long day - notices it as well. But Adora knows this, too: if she were fighting most anyone else, or if Catra were, their opponents wouldn’t stand a chance, even now. 

Because even tired, there’s something bright and hot and glowing in her, something that’s in Catra, too. Because even tired, Catra’s the hardest fight Adora’s ever faced. Because even tired, they’re amazing - _Catra’s_ amazing, small and sharp-edged and somehow larger than life. 

Even tired, they’re still the best. 

Adora doesn’t go easy, not at all, and she knows Catra doesn’t either. And so when she backs Catra into a tree, panting and sweaty and mud-splattered, she knows it’s a moment earned. The tip of Adora’s sword sits, steel against bare skin, at the dip of Catra’s neck; she feels Catra’s blade biting cold against the thin tunic at her side. 

Stalemate, maybe. 

Except: they don’t _do_ stalemates. 

They both have bruises and cuts and wounds, of course they do, and Adora has no idea which fight each came from, cannot track the exact process that has taken her from morning cleanliness to a dirty, sweaty patchwork. Catra’s hair is stuck to her forehead with sweat or mud or blood; a little of the last trickles down from a reopened wound to catch in her eyebrow, and Adora once again is struck by the urge to check her head for any larger hurts. But she can’t, because for all that Catra’s the one with a tree at her back, Adora is also pinned: by Catra’s sword but more still by Catra’s eyes, tired and bright and clear and piercing, with something in them Adora still can’t parse. 

And then those eyes are all she’s pinned by, as Catra drops the sword. It falls to the ground with a _thump_ , but Adora’s gaze doesn’t waver and neither does Catra’s, even when - especially when - Catra says, voice hoarse and low, “I yield.” 

She sounds exhausted, _beyond_ exhausted, but between the edges of fatigue she sounds other things: honest and rueful and so damn _admiring_ that Adora burns with it. Because that’s what’s been in Catra’s eyes, she realizes, earlier in the arena and here before they fought and here afterwards. Not dread or fear or intimidation, not resentment or even frustration - it’s awe and it’s admiration and it’s something so much more tender than either, and for all the delicacy of it Adora feels the look roll through her with the force and impact of a lance against armor. It resonates through her, earthshaking and groundbreaking and new and old and perfect, even while the wonder of it is spoiled by Catra’s words that resonate through her too, a sour note in a symphony, wrong. 

“No.” Adora says, “don’t you dare.” 

“Adora—”

“No.” Adora says again, firmly, and this time she pulls her sword from the thin skin of Catra’s throat, watches the pulse flutter there for a moment as she turns it around, presents it hilt first. She brings her eyes back to Catra’s wide ones, “You’re the best woman - the best _knight_ \- I’ve ever met, you know that? I’m the one who yields.”

Adora waits for the snark, for the _It doesn’t work like that_ or _You’re such an idiot_ , but it doesn’t come. Instead, Catra knocks the sword out of Adora’s hands entirely - a dangerous move, really, but Adora can’t dwell on that when Catra’s replaced the blade with herself, her whole body flung into Adora’s arms and her mouth on Adora’s mouth and her sweat and mud and blood against Adora’s again, but this time it’s not a battle at all.

“You’re such an idiot,” Catra says when they part, and Adora laughs with the glee of knowing her. 

“Yeah, I know.” She murmurs back, laughter no longer overt but still, she thinks, in her words. She refuses to let go, and Catra doesn’t seem inclined to go far either, her forehead tipped against Adora’s and eyes closed, hands latched at Adora’s neck.

Catra takes a deep breath in, then out, then opens her eyes. “We’re done.” She says, with finality, and it sends a frisson of panic through Adora. She tightens her fingers at Catra’s hip and waist in a way the other woman must understand, because Catra rocks her forehead against Adora’s in admonishment and says, “With fighting, I mean. Promise me we’re done, Adora, I don’t— I don’t want to fight you anymore. I want to, the way I want to touch you, it’s—”

She doesn’t finish her thought, but the way she trails her fingers along Adora’s cheek, infinitely gentle, says enough.

“I promise,” Adora says, and kisses her again.

(Later, much later, after they’ve cleaned up, after they’ve shoved their armor and swords into a mixed pile and worried over each other’s wounds, after they’ve eaten a mindless meal and collapsed into exhausted sleep in the guest quarters of Scorpia’s new castle for the whole night and half a day besides, Adora stumbles down to the kitchens and brings back a tray of meat and cheese and fruit. When she returns, Catra is sitting up in the bed, the loose, clean tunic she’d changed into the night before falling off one shoulder and a shocked expression on her face, hands pressed to her mouth.

“What?” Adora asks, alarmed. 

And Catra replies, “You tried...to give me...a _country_.” 

Adora bites her lip against a smile. “Is the Horde technically a country?” 

Catra gapes, " _Yes of course,_ the Horde is a country! Adora! Don’t play dumb!”

“I thought you’d be good at it,” Adora murmurs, sliding the tray onto a small table.

“Adora.” 

“You’re really good, you know? Like, the first time I saw you, when you were beating up on those knights—”

“Adora.”

“—it was _amazing_ , really, and then you’d always talk about how you’d reform the Horde—” 

“Adora.” 

“—and you’ve always had really smart ideas! I hope you’ll work with Scorpia on—”

“ _Adora_.” 

“—some of the specifics; when you’re not doing the revenge thing you’re really—”

“ _Adora!_ ”

Adora smiles, knows it’s a bad approximation of innocent. “What?” she asks, a little archly, “I’m just explaining how much I respect you.”

Catra groans, covering her bright red face with her hands, and says, “ _Adora, please.”_

“Really does it for you, doesn’t it?” Adora laughs. 

“I hate you.” 

“It’s all true, too.” 

“Take off your clothes.” 

“Good at orders, too, very command—“

“ _Adora_ , if you do not take off your clothes _right now_ I will _stab_ you _._ ”

“You said we weren’t fighting anymore.” 

“Don’t make a liar of me, then, and _take off your clothes._ ” 

Adora doesn’t, and Adora does.)

* * *

**Author's Note:**

>  _“Then Sir Tristram would make no longer delays, but lashed at Sir Lamorak; and thus they fought long till either were weary of other. Then Sir Tristram said to Sir Lamorak: In all my life met I never with such a knight that was so big and well breathed as ye be, therefore, said Sir Tristram, it were pity that any of us both should here be mischieved. Sir, said Sir Lamorak, for your renown and name I will that ye have the worship of this battle, and therefore I will yield me unto you. And therewith he took the point of his sword to yield him. Nay, said Sir Tristram, ye shall not do so, for well I know your proffers, and more of your gentleness than for any fear or dread ye have of me. And therewithal Sir Tristram proffered him his sword and said: Sir Lamorak, as an overcome knight I yield me unto you as to a man of the most noble prowess that ever I met withal. Nay, said Sir Lamorak,_ **I will do you gentleness** _; I require you let us be sworn together that never none of us shall after this day have ado with other. And therewithal Sir Tristram and Sir Lamorak sware that never none of them should fight against other, nor for weal nor for woe.”_  
>  _-Le Morte d’Arthur_ by Sir Thomas Malory, Book IX, Chapter XI.
> 
> If you want to come talk to me about She-Ra and Arthurian myth (separate or together), you can find me on tumblr as _ostensiblyarticulate_. I don’t do great upkeep on my blog, but would absolutely love to hear from anyone else hanging out at this particular intersection. I may or may not write some of the earlier moments in this AU one day (if the mood strikes).


End file.
